It's all a bit generalised.I've cycled on the A59 for many years and wouldn't hesitate again even today.Mind you, I'm talking about the A59 Aughton/Ormskirk/Burscough/Rufford/Tarlton.Good cycling road IMO.

Apart from the rather peaceful roads of the Trough of Bowland and Forest of Bowland I’ve only had one other ride in Lancashire. Very enjoyable it was, too, but I do recall a bit of ‘A’ road riding to get in a loop. Oh, but wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who remarked that the Lancashire cyclist is best advised to strap his bike to a car and drive to the Yorkshire Wolds...?

Thanks for the link and its alert about the A584 as will be heading that way soon from preston-ish towards lytham. Cycletravel may offer a good alternative.Any cycle infrastructure on the A584 at all?The A59 near clitheroe has long been dangerous even for folks in cars as it can feel like a motorway but is anything but and drivers can take risks overtaking. I avoid it whenever possible.

There is a shared path from preston upto the A584/583 junction, but from the traffic lights there is just a white line at the edge of the road all the way to Freckleton/Lytham.There are some intermittent footpaths but otherwise the only way is to figure out a winding route through the lanes on the north side.

Last edited by cycleruk on 17 Mar 2019, 7:47pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's no such thing as a tailwind.It's either a headwind, or you're going well.

There is a shared path frompreston upto the A584/583 junction, but from the traffic lights there is just a white line at the edge of the road all the way to Freckleton/Lytham.There are some intermittent footpaths but otherwise the only way is to figure out a winding route through the lanes on the north side.

Thanks cyleruk - that is vaguely how I remember it from trips up that road by bus. Off to check the maps for it is a fast road and a white line is only so much use on roads like that.

I'm not sure the figures do tell you which bits of road are the most dangerous. The A6 is a very long road. If it was only averagely dangerous it might still have a higher total than most others because of its length. What you need is figures per kilometre, and even then you would be getting a not very useful amalgam of stretches of road with different risk levels, only useful if you intend cycling all of it. And the danger level of a road must be done by kilometres cycled. A road that sees a few fatalities but has few cyclists using it must be more dangerous than one that has the same number of fatalities with higher usage.

pwa wrote:I'm not sure the figures do tell you which bits of road are the most dangerous. The A6 is a very long road. If it was only averagely dangerous it might still have a higher total than most others because of its length. What you need is figures per kilometre, and even then you would be getting a not very useful amalgam of stretches of road with different risk levels, only useful if you intend cycling all of it. And the danger level of a road must be done by kilometres cycled. A road that sees a few fatalities but has few cyclists using it must be more dangerous than one that has the same number of fatalities with higher usage.

Agreed. I don't think these figures tell you anything useful about these roads. As PWA points out, you also need to know the levels of cycling.

There are (at least) two other problems with looking at accident reports.

1) With low levels of cycling in most areas of the UK, there are actually very few cycling related accidents at any particular junction or stretch of road. You can make general conclusions, for example, that accidents tend to occur at junctions, or some types of road are more dangerous than others.

I do not know this area. The A6 is described as the most dangerous road in Lancashire for cycling, with 22 serious accidents in 3 years on about 45 miles of road (please correct me, if I have the distance wrong). Or, 1 serious accident per mile every 6 years. On average. Or an accident per 1/4 mile typically every 24 years. It's unlikely that accidents will be evenly distributed.

How can the A6 be made safer for cycling? I suggest that accident data is unlikely to help decide this, unless there are places with lots of accidents (at least a few per year).

Contrast this with general road accidents.

Looking at https://www.crashmap.co.uk/Search for Basingstoke, you can see that every major roundabout has has many accidents (over the past 5 years). Some more than others. So, planners can see which places would benefit most from safety improvements.

2) The other problem with accident data is that cyclists avoid what they think of as the most dangerous roads. Again, looking at Basingstoke on crashmap shows that most of the large roundabouts had no cycle accidents. Nor did the dual carriageway ring-road have many. Do you conclude that fast dual carriageways and large multilane roundabouts are safe for cycling? Or perhaps cyclists avoid these?

There's no dangerous roads,it's the people using them that are the danger,and for cyclists that's predominantly car drivers or at least an element of them who are willing to risk people's lives,including their own at times,for their own expedience.Some of the antics of car drivers,for it's overwhelmingly those driving cars,beggars belief at times,but at risk of repeating myself like a scratched record,with no chance of ever being caught their antics will only become worse IMO.

To reinforce the points others have made, the stats are meaningless unless they are based per km cycled.

The A6 and A59 are both long roads that traverse the entire county. Both roads also go right through the centre of Preston so will see a significant volume of cycle commuters. These two roads almost certainly carry more cycle traffic than any other A roads in Lancashire so you would expect to see a high number of crashes even if they were the safest roads in the county.

What is more interesting are the other roads on the list:

The A584 is only about 20 miles long and runs along the coast through Blackpool and Lytham yet sees as many cycle crashes as the A59. Is it drivers getting distracted by the illuminations?

The A682 is also known for motorcycle crashes. Again probably because it is an attractive road to ride, rather than being inherently dangerous. I guess it is also used by leisure cyclists heading out to the Yorkshire Dales so the stats would probably show more crashes at weekends.

Pete Owens wrote:What is more interesting are the other roads on the list:

The A584 is only about 20 miles long and runs along the coast through Blackpool and Lytham yet sees as many cycle crashes as the A59. Is it drivers getting distracted by the illuminations?

I was going to suggest that the Illuminations was unlikely to be a factor but then it occurred to me that the annual "Ride the Lights" could have skewed things - thousands of people cycling through the lights over a short time on one evening in August with the route closed to cars. It isn't unusual to see folk (St John Ambulance or the like) attending to someone who has had a spill, often a child. The ones I've seen didn't look to be serious but possibly more likely to find their way into statistics where a similar incident on a "normal" ride might well be dealt with by the people involved.

It's an interesting article. I for one have had 2 of my recent accidents on the A6 (3 if you count the one where my son knocked me off by riding into me ... knocking both of us off). One was south side of Chorley when a taxi turned right into me and one was north of Preston when someone kindly turned left across me... Given that I commuted for years along the A6 from Horwich to Preston on an almost daily basis it is probably hardly surprising that statistically I have had 2 accidents on it. It is a very difficult road to avoid.

I stand and rejoice everytime I see a woman ride by on a wheel the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. HG Wells

Pete Owens wrote:The A584 is only about 20 miles long and runs along the coast through Blackpool and Lytham yet sees as many cycle crashes as the A59. Is it drivers getting distracted by the illuminations?.

If you're heading from Preston towards Blackpool on the A583 and use the cycle path which at that point is just on the pavement, where the A584 peels off is possibly the most dangerous cycle crossing I've ever had to use. It's just round the corner so you're blind to traffic turning onto the A584, and as the traffic turning there is a continuation of a lane with no light, every vehicle is always moving at speed and you have about 1.5 seconds notice of a vehicle coming and you just have to go for it i you want to cross to the middle island. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that truly terrible junction is the cause of a lot of the accident stats.

I used to commute that way in the 00s and just put up with it, but now I'm back to living in the area again and I'd got used to even the crappest bike lane in Manchester being an order of magnitude better designed I refuse to cross on it and if I'm heading that way I just carry on up the A584 instead.